"You mean that one-eyed, one-handed colonel?" Nick asked in astonishment. "How is that possible? During the incident, he fired a shot at the killer with his good hand."
"Damn it, if you interrupt me again, I'll shoot you," Sergei growled, pulling out his gun and pointing it at Nick. "Are you stupid? I said one of the killers. One of them! Do you understand, you idiotic American?"
"Yes, yes, I get it," Nick replied, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. Even though he didn't like being threatened, he had no choice but to play it safe when facing the barrel of a gun. "Please, go on."
"I hate you Americans," Sergei muttered, glaring at Nick. After pausing to gather his thoughts, he continued, "This story starts over twenty years ago, in 1974. Back then, Marco was just a reckless adventurer who didn't care if he lived or died, as long as he made money.
"That year, he went to Africa to work on a deal with our people and Colonel Uranga's country to develop a gold mine with massive reserves. The contract was signed in the evening during a banquet.
"No one noticed a plane flying in from the distance—no one except Uranga, who was still a major and the head of the presidential guard at the time. But here's the strange part: instead of protecting his own president, Uranga shielded Marco.
"A bomb dropped from the plane hit the lawn outside the banquet hall. After the explosion, Marco was unharmed, but Uranga lost his left hand and left eye. He spent eleven months in a hospital bed before waking up."
"And then?" Audrey interrupted, her curiosity piqued.
Sergei glanced at Audrey before nodding somberly. "When he woke up, he didn't find honor waiting for him—only pain. His fiancée, Madeleine Butler, had died during childbirth."
"Childbirth?" Audrey frowned, confused.
"Yes, childbirth," Sergei confirmed grimly. "But the child wasn't Uranga's—it was Marco's."
"What?!"
"Oh my God," Nick and Audrey exclaimed in unison. "That old man was that evil?"
"Evil?" Sergei sneered. "Anyone who dared to move between two world powers during the Cold War wasn't just evil—they were devils and butchers.
"But no matter how cunning they were, once they were targeted by both sides, there was no escape. After that explosion, it was like Marco became a completely different person. He started..."
Sergei trailed off, as if remembering something terrifying. He shuddered and shook his head. "Forget it. I won't talk about that. Anyway, Madeleine Butler died during childbirth, and so did the baby boy in her womb.
"After learning what had happened to his fiancée, Colonel Uranga never mentioned her again. He threw himself entirely into managing the African mines, becoming a tribal leader and security chief with a tiny share of the profits.
"That was how things stayed until two years ago, during one of Marco's family gatherings."
At this point, Sergei paused, taking a moment to recall the events before continuing. "That evening, the colonel—who never drank—came to my room with a bottle of Macallan whiskey.
"And not just any Macallan—it was a rare vintage from 1956. With such fine whiskey in hand, of course, I didn't refuse him. But even after the whiskey was gone, he wouldn't leave my room. He just kept rambling on and on about random nonsense.
"I had no interest in chatting with him all night, so I pretended to be drunk. While I was acting, I suddenly heard him ask me this:
'Sergei, if someone wanted to kill Marco Cannes, how would they do it?'"
"What?" Audrey gasped, covering her mouth in shock. Nick, on the other hand, leaned forward excitedly. "What did you say? What did you tell him?"
Sergei gave Audrey a withering look before turning to Nick. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're an asshole?"
"Uh, well..." Audrey looked embarrassed, covering her face with her hands.
"Damn it, I'm a cop. I can't let emotions cloud my judgment when investigating," Nick said defensively.
Sergei rolled his eyes before replying, "Fine. I told him that if someone wanted to kill Marco, they'd need to choose a remote location and create chaos to distract everyone.
"But most importantly, they'd have to ensure that everyone present had a motive to commit the crime. That way, the real killer could hide among the suspects, and the police wouldn't be able to find any evidence."
Sergei looked at Nick and Audrey with a mixture of regret and anger. "Isn't it ironic? The exact plan I described was carried out on that yacht. I told the killer how to murder Marco."
Before Nick or Audrey could respond, a sudden bang, bang, bang on the door startled all three of them, making them jump.
Bang, bang, bang. The knocking came again. Sergei quickly drew his gun and motioned for Nick and Audrey. "Hide in the closet. Don't come out unless I call you. Got it?"
"Got it, got it," Nick and Audrey nodded hurriedly, retreating into the closet. Before closing the door, Audrey positioned her camcorder so it was peeking through a crack, aimed at the room's entrance.
Moments later, Sergei opened the door and exchanged a few words with someone outside. Suddenly, Nick heard three faint thwip, thwip, thwip sounds—gunshots muffled by a silencer.
This was followed by the sound of the door closing and Sergei's heavy body collapsing to the floor.
"Damn it," Nick muttered under his breath. After twenty years as a cop, he immediately recognized the sound of a silenced gun. Carefully, he pushed open the closet door, grabbed the camcorder, and pulled Audrey toward the window.
The two climbed out and made their way along the narrow ledge toward Room 807.
Inside 807, they saw Colonel Uranga sitting on a chair, casually watching TV. Strangely, even though he was wearing a tank top and shorts, he still had a shoulder holster strapped on, complete with a revolver.
This sight confirmed one thing: Uranga couldn't have been the one who killed Sergei. Nick and Audrey quietly moved past his room and reached Room 806.
There, they saw Grace Ballard entering the room with an Indian man. As soon as the door closed, the two collapsed onto the bed, clearly in the middle of something inappropriate.
"Damn it, Nick, have some decency!" Audrey snapped, slapping her husband on the arm when she noticed him watching the scene too intently. "Let's go report this before we end up as suspects ourselves."
"Fine," Nick said reluctantly. But just as he was about to leave, he noticed the man, Vikram, pass out after less than a minute.
Embarrassed and frustrated, Vikram hurriedly promised Grace that as long as she kept quiet about his performance, he'd take her shopping.
When Grace demanded a penthouse in New York as her price, Nick muttered curses under his breath, calling them shameless before angrily moving on.
Catching up to Audrey, Nick noticed her frozen in place, staring intently through another window.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"Quiet!" Audrey hissed, turning back toward the room. "I see Susie. She's loading a gun."
"What kind of gun?" Nick asked in a low voice. "Does it have a silencer?"
"I don't know," Audrey snapped. "Stop talking so loud!"
She peeked through the window again, then whispered urgently, "Damn it, she's heading out!"
As Susie left the room, Audrey climbed in through the open window and tugged on Nick's sleeve. "Hurry, let's follow her. I want to know why she's carrying a gun so late at night."